


A posteriori

by DelektorskiChick



Series: Kintsukuroi Universe [2]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Demisexual Parker, F/M, It's mostly plot, M/M, Mild non-con, Multi, OT3, Safe Sane and Consensual, Soul Bond, Threesome - F/M/M, alpha!Parker, beta!Alec Hardison, but it has more plot than the last one, conversion camp, in fact, omega!Eliot Spencer, some smut, soul mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 20:34:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15937772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelektorskiChick/pseuds/DelektorskiChick
Summary: The team goes undercover at a religious conversion camp to save a client's alpha daughter from her ex-husband. This time though, they have the additional wrench in the works of recently becoming soul-bonded....remember how I said I took that little plot bunny and RAN with it?? It happened again.





	1. Hardison

**Author's Note:**

> A posteriori is Latin meaning "from the later" and used in reference to a philosophical term of art from Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. A posteriori knowledge or justification depends on experience or empirical evidence, as with most aspects of science and personal knowledge. You have to experience something in order to know it.

It was only a matter of time before someone had come to them with a job like this. Frankly, Hardison was shocked it hadn’t happened before.

Or maybe it had and Nate had turned them down. Though he couldn’t imagine why he would.

Julia Henderson couldn’t stop crying. It wasn’t a constant sobbing or shaky breathing; tears just rolled quietly down her face one after the other as she talked about her daughter.

“She was the first alpha female born in my family in generations.” She sniffed quietly. “We were all so stunned when the tests came back, even before she was born. But we never loved her any differently than my other kids. Or at least, I didn’t.

“Her father was a different story. His family had been strictly male alpha, female omega for so long; he didn’t even want to  _hold_  her when she was born.”

Julia’s jaw clenched.

“He kept telling me if we’d only bonded like he wanted to, we’d have had “normal” children. One of our sons, Michael, he was born beta. His father would barely speak to him.

“We divorced three years ago, and he got primary custody of all our children.” Julia covered her mouth with her hand to hide a sob. “Two weeks ago, Michael told the courts he’d rather come live with me. His father was getting ready to send him to a conversion camp, the same camp he’s been sending my Genna to for the last three years.

“I tried to tell the courts what he was doing, but without Genna’s testimony they can’t do anything because the camp isn’t illegal and he’s her guardian. He’s got her so drugged and scared that she won’t say a word.

“Please, help me save my baby girl.” She reached across the table and wrapped a hand each around his and Eliot’s.

She avoided looking at Parker, wary of anyone who smelled alpha.

“I just want my baby girl back.”

“Ms. Henderson,” Eliot’s voice sounded raw and scraped. “I promise you we’re going to get her back. I swear on my life, I will put her in your arms myself.”

Hardison felt his eyebrow rise at the earnestness in Eliot’s tone. He managed to hold in his question until Parker was escorting their client out.

“What was that all about?”

Eliot clenched his jaw and looked away from him, making as if to shove back from the table.

“Hey,” Hardison placed his hand gently over Eliot’s fist. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wanna. But  _something_  is tearing you up inside and it makes me worry. No, I can’t feel the bond you swear is there,” he said with a gentle eye roll to Eliot’s cocked brow, “but I love you. And I  _know_  you; I know when you’re hurting. And I’d be grateful if you’d tell me what it is.”

Eliot closed his eyes and sighed, turning his wrist to twine Hardison’s fingers with his. He lifted their hands and ran the back of Hardison’s hand down his cheek.

“Not somethin’ I wanna talk about more than once. Can we wait for Parker?”

“Sure baby, whatever you need.”

Hardison held hands with Eliot, slowly stroking his thumb up and down. Eliot sighed again, shifting in his seat to lean against Hardison’s side, head on his shoulder. Hardison reached up with his free hand and petted Eliot’s hair, running his fingers gently through it.

Parker sat down across from them, arms folded atop one another on the table.

They waited.

Finally, Eliot sat up, pulling Hardison’s hand to his lips for a brief kiss.

“Conversion camps. They’re not-” he swallowed hard. “They’re not pretty.”

Hardison felt a chill arrow down his spine. “Baby, please don’t tell me you-”

“From ‘87 to ‘89, my father sent me to one of them.”

Hardison squeezed the hand he still held, and Parker reached out to take Eliot’s other hand.

“The ads and reps all say it’s like a summer camp, but where you learn to ignore your body’s urges if you’re not ‘aligned correctly’, and how to ‘follow the proper gender guidelines’ Male omegas, female alphas, alpha/alpha and omega/omega partners, they all get sent there.” Eliot squeezed Hardison’s hand lightly. “I think there was even a beta there once, though he might have been there by accident.

“But it wasn’t like summer camp.” He took a shaky breath in. “They would strap you down in these metal chairs and pin your eyes open with those things they use in optical surgery, make you watch torture porn of whatever you weren’t  _supposed_  to be.

“There was this one where they took an omega male and-” he cut himself off and clenched his jaw, sweat breaking out at his hairline. Hardison just wanted to hug him and make his whole past disappear.

“Anyway, god forbid you go into your first, or  _any_ heat or rut while you were there. Gave a whole new meaning to ‘aversion therapy’. I finally was released when the camp I was at got shut down after a kid  _died_. I stayed on the streets for six months, hiding from my dad and getting my hands on the best suppressants I could. Enlisted in the army on my 18th birthday as a beta.

“No one figured it out, not for years. Not till Moreau.”

“That’s why you can go so long between heats.” Hardison tore his eyes away from Eliot and looked to Parker as she spoke. “You learned there. And in the army.”

“And then you just kept passing.”

Eliot nodded, eyes shut tight as he squeezed fiercely at their hands.

“The few times I did go into heat were usually after I got the shit beat out of me and got some kind of infection. Antibiotics screw with even legal suppressants. Usually I have to go off them for a couple of days, and it always sends me into a heat.”

“That ‘nurse’ in Boston-“

“Was a registered sterile alpha from a local heat house. When you can pay the kind of money we have, they make house calls.”

Something Eliot had said earlier hit Hardison with a jolt.

“Male omegas and female alphas, you said?”

“Sometimes betas too; why?”

Hardison turned to face Parker. “They ever try and put you in one of those camps?”

She shook her head. “Before Archie found me, I technically was a ward of the state. Most of those camps are religious ones.”

“I have never been more thankful for the separation of church and state.”

“Yeah, well, let me tell you first hand, we’re getting that girl out of there, one way or another.” Eliot’s eyes glittered with unshed tears as he met their gazes.

Hardison swore he felt the tiniest thrum beneath his breastbone. He gasped, reaching out and taking Parker’s hand. The thrum picked up its pace, becoming a slow, double throb, like a second heartbeat.

Parker’s mouth dropped open a hair, and Eliot shivered.

“El, baby, is that-”

“Yeah.” Eliot was nearly panting. “It’s the bond.”

“We’ve... we’ve never all been linked like this unless we’re having sex. And then-”

“We chalk it up to getting it on.” Hardison cut her off. No, he finished her sentence. Just like a bonded couple.

Eliot was still shaking, breathing hard. “It’s not usually this  _intense_.” He groaned out loud and gripped their hands nearly to the point of pain.

Hardison was absurdly grateful they’d closed the pub for this meeting, because when Eliot opened his eyes his pupils were the size of saucers. And he wasn’t sure Parker was aware of it, but there was definitely a low rumble coming from her chest.

“Eliot?”

“Now.  _Now_.” Eliot leapt into Hardison’s lap, kissing the breath from him as Eliot pulled Parker around the table with him. Their hands broke their connection, but the thrum didn’t disappear; in fact, it sped up, pulsing and throbbing in time to Eliot’s kisses. Parker ran her hand up Eliot’s side to take his shirt off, and Hardison felt the contact shiver through the bond.

Eliot tugged Hardison’s shirt off as Parker did his, and then Hardison used his hands on Eliot’s waist to keep him balanced as the omega shucked out of his pants. Hardison didn’t even manage to get his all the way down before Eliot grabbed his cock and stroked it, taking it from semi-flaccid to full hardness in moments.

Eliot sank down on him in the next second-hot, slick,  _tight_ -and Hardison’s head spun. He shifted his right hand from Eliot’s hip to his cock, stroking him in time to Eliot’s own thrusts up and down. Hardison felt Parker’s questing fingertips find his cock briefly, then stretch Eliot slightly as he moaned. Half a breath later and-

“God,  _Parker-!_ ” She slid inside him, her slim cock rubbing up against Hardison’s as she growled. Eliot was beyond words after a single, animal cry. He dropped his forehead down to Hardison’s, his body almost entirely unable to support itself.

Hardison wasn’t gonna lie, he was having a pretty difficult time focusing too; in all the sex they’d had, they’d never done  _this_. Parker, after a momentary pause to make sure she wasn’t hurting either of them, had started to slowly thrust into Eliot. Hardison did his best to find her rhythm, putting both hands back on Eliot’s waist and pulling out as she went in, thrusting up into their quivering partner as Parker slid back. He kissed Eliot open mouthed, sucking and nipping at his slack jaw.

The moan Eliot gave sent shivers down his spine.

Parker wrapped her arms around Eliot’s chest, pulling his back to her front. She ran her nose along the line of his left shoulder, and Hardison watched her eyes flutter shut.

“Can you smell him, babe?”

“Actually, I  _can_.”

Hardison smiled up at her, then groaned with Eliot as she thrust in again. Her knot was starting to swell and put pressure on both of them.

“Eliot, Hardison, I’m going to-”

“Do it.” Eliot’s voice was hoarse and wavering, but it was there.

“I’m with him, babe, don’t pull out.” How they’d both known that’s what she was planning, Hardison wasn’t sure, but if it was the bond- _please don’t be the bond_ -that was scary.

Two more grunting thrusts, and Parker came, her pupils huge. She ran her teeth along the edge of Eliot’s neck, but didn’t bear down.

Hardison would have wondered about that, but he was a little busy worrying about his cock at the moment.

Now, Hardison had never been one to shy away from playing with different toys; he’d managed a lot of solo flights, as it were, before meeting the team. And that’s how he knew that Parker’s knot was acting like a cock ring, keeping him from spilling. Otherwise, he’d have come seconds after she did.

Eliot’s whimpers cut through the haze the pressure put on Hardison’s vision, drawing him out of his own mind and down to Eliot’s erection, where it was making a puddle on Hardison’s stomach to compete with the pool of slick at the crotch of his jeans. One unsteady hand found its way back to wrapping around it. Eliot clutched weakly at his shoulders with his left hand, the right flopping behind him to cup Parker’s head. It took another few moments of stroking Eliot, who still hadn’t had his release, before Parker’s knot relaxed enough to ease the pressure on Hardison’s cock enough for him to come.

And come he did. His head dropped forward onto Eliot’s chest as a groan rose through his body. Eliot hissed, clenching down on them both, and Hardison managed to raise his head and meet Parker’s gaze.

He lifted his chin, shuddering through his orgasm, and fitted his teeth to Eliot’s shoulder, brushing cheeks with Parker as she did the same. Twisting his wrist in a sudden action, he wrung Eliot’s orgasm from him as the two bit down simultaneously, breaking the skin and sinking into the gland beneath it.

There was a moment when Eliot screamed, but Hardison was sure it was pleasure and not pain. For that briefest instant, information flooded Hardison’s senses; scents and colors, feelings. He saw himself from Parker’s vantage; dark skin pressed to Eliot’s tan, long fingered hand just visible as it continued to pull every last wave of pleasure from him. The next moment was from Eliot’s perspective; though he had his eyes closed, he could sense them, heat and pressure and  _love_  from every angle, caressing him and holding him steady.

Hardison snapped back into his own skull, breathless as he released his bite from Eliot’s shoulder and his hand from his cock.

“The hell was  _that_?” He asked between gasps of air.

“I think,” Eliot said from where his head rested back on Parker’s shoulder, “I think that was a soul bond.”

If it were possible, Hardison’s mouth dropped open even more. Even Parker looked up in surprise, finally lifting her teeth from Eliot’s shoulder.

A soul bond, that was a rare thing, almost unheard of except in romance novels. You could bond, or not bond, to just about anyone. He’d even heard of two alphas or two omegas managing to do it. And these days, you weren’t even required to bond with your spouse if you didn’t want to. And not everybody did, as evidenced by their client earlier.

Soul bonds were different. They usually, but not always, happened after you’d bonded with your chosen mate. Science still couldn’t explain all of it, exactly, but if your bond mate was your quote/unquote soul mate-and Hardison used those words with all sarcasm-an urge would grab you-

Check.

-you’d mate wherever you stood-

Check.

-and you’d somehow tie your soul to theirs, getting the semi-terrifying extra sense of being able to check in on them from inside their own mind.

Double check.

Hardison had heard on the depths of the internet about poly couples who’d managed to bond-more in recent months, given the amount of research he’d done in the wake of Eliot telling him that a bond actually  _existed_ between the three of them-but he’d only heard rumors about poly groups soul bonding.

Apparently, they were fucking weirdos.

“Well that, complicates things, doesn’t it?”

“Alec, your gift of understating the obvious sometimes makes me want to punch you in the face.”

“But you won’t, because we love him.”

“Right.”


	2. Parker

Parker liked Lucille. She really did. But she was going a little stir crazy stuck inside the van for most of this con.

They’d all agreed; she couldn’t smell pheromones, so she wouldn’t know if someone was an alpha or not, nor could she hide her own. Hardison could pass as a male alpha with the right scents applied, and Eliot-according to a call Hardison had made using a posh accent-exactly the sort of example the camp wanted for its male omegas.

Bonded. Subservient. Meek. Willing to do menial labor upon orders from his (male) alpha.

Parker had laughed out loud.

But that left her playing puppet master in the van while Eliot and Hardison were her inside men. And that made her itchy. The whole  _camp_  made her itchy.

Camp Wannafree. Stupid name.

_“Parker, calm down. You’re makin’ me twitchy.”_

“Sorry,” she told Eliot with a wince. “Still not used to the whole, emotional-psychic-thing.”

 _“It’s okay babe,”_ Hardison chimed in, _“he’s giving me goosebumps. Sending me_ lustful _stares under his eyelashes that are longer than_ sin _.”_

 _“Shut up, Hardison.”_ The good-tempered exasperation in Eliot’s voice made Parker giggle a bit.

Hardison sighed. _“I’m just hurt that they wouldn’t let you in the kitchen, even with that chef’s certification I forged you.”_

_“They don’t want an invert touching food they eat. All these people are sexist assholes.”_

Parker didn’t know what invert meant in that context, but the pain that lanced through her-old and worn from Eliot, and sharp and bright from Hardison-told her it wasn’t good.

“What’s-"

_“It’s a rude, outdated word for yours and Eliot’s genders, babe.”_

_“Hey, we’re takin’ it back!”_

_“Not in that context, you’re not.”_

“So it’s like calling a muggleborn a mudblood?”

_“Not quite as bad as that, but it’s not nice.”_

Parker would have added a question-what was the mudblood equivalent-when something on the monitor caught her attention.

“Hardison, you’ve got the boss-man incoming. Eliot, two campers and a counselor on the path behind you. They’re all walking with swaggers.”

_“I guarantee they’re male omegas, ones who’ve chosen to pass as alpha.”_

“Keep your eyes out anyway.”

_“Got it.”_

Parker watched the screens, torn between Hardison sassing the alpha camp owner-a sleezeball named Pritchard-without him realizing and Eliot’s quiet deference to the young males walking his way. Eliot’s screen won out.

She watched him stop raking the path and step out of the way of the young brunets. The counselor stopped about fifteen feet behind them, a smirk on his face. The two boys laughed, the taller one elbowing his friend as they walked by Eliot, standing there with his head bowed.

_“Lookit Jamie, they brought in a new guy.”_

_“That ain’t a guy, that’s a slut.”_

Parker’s breath caught; later she realized that it wasn’t because Eliot felt hurt by the slur, but because he felt nothing at all.

 _“Mr. Pritchard hired him outta pity. His alpha didn’t want him around. Freak.”_ This last was said with venom. The shorter boy spat at the ground at Eliot’s feet.  _“Not good enough to share the same air.”_

The two boys walked on out of the range of Eliot’s earbud, laughing and jeering.

 _“That’s one of the things I hate about camps like this,”_  Eliot whispered, trying not to move his lips.  _“They teach you to hate what you are, what you can’t help.”_

Parker felt sick to her stomach. She nearly jumped out of her seat then, when the blond camp counselor came up behind Eliot, pulled his body back, grinding into him, and then reached around to grab his crotch.

She pulled herself out of her shock quickly.

“Not a threat, Eliot. Do not retaliate. Not yet. We need to keep your cover. You’re the one who has to get Genna out of there.

“Stay calm.”

She watched him take a deep breath, then not react at all.

Hardison had gone suddenly quiet, his usual hacking chatter gone. Her eyes snapped up briefly to his monitors.

“Hardison, Pritchard is still in your office. I have eyes on Eliot. Nothing is going to happen.  _Grift_.”

_“Sorry about that, Mr. Pritchard, lost my train of thought. Where were we on that tracking app?”_

Parker turned back to Eliot’s screen, holding her breath.

_“What’s a pretty little he-bitch like you doing out here all alone with no alpha to guard you?”_

She watched as he swallowed.

“You’re not alone, Eliot. You have us. Stay in character, and you can punch the daylights out of him when we have the girl.”

Parker could see the tension leave his jaw.

 _“I’m bonded. My alpha has his own work.”_  He looked at the camera from the corner of his eye; a silent apology for the ruse.

Parker couldn’t care less. The a-hole needed to get his hands off Eliot before she cut them off.

_“Oh, come on. Everybody knows he-bitches are insatiable. What’d’ya say? Wanna slip aside for a quick fuck?”_

The guy was rubbing Eliot’s crotch, mouthing at the side of Eliot’s neck. Parker saw red and was halfway out of the van.

 _“Parker, stop it.”_  Hardison’s voice froze her in her tracks.  _“Eliot can handle this. Stop growling.”_

She did, barely reining herself in. When had  _this_  happened? She’d almost always been level headed.

 _“I love my bonded. I don’t want anyone else.”_  Eliot’s words centered her, calmed her down to the point where she could think again.

She watched as Eliot reached up and pulled the collar of his groundskeeper’s uniform away, showing the multitude of bite scars that she and Hardison had left.

They’d both offered to write a doctor’s note so he could have them removed, but Eliot hadn’t wanted to.

 _“As you can see,”_ Eliot said, without a single drop of sarcasm as he slowly extricated himself from the counselor’s hold,  _“My bonded loves me back, he-bitch or not. So please, don’t.”_

His tone nearly had her curling her lip. Eliot was hurting, even if he was trying to hide it.

 _“There’s no way in hell a_ true _alpha would mark an omega male that many times.”_

 _“Believe it.”_ Eliot reached into his back pocket, pulling out his cover wallet-fake driver’s license, fake omega registry card with a note on it that he was sterile, a fake bonding license with his cover’s name-and pulled out a photo Parker hadn’t seen before.

“Nice, Hardison. Didn’t think you’d actually put Moreau in the photo, but it’s a nice touch.”

_“Parker, I didn’t make any photos to put in that wallet. Just the documents.”_

Parker went silent as the photo had its desired effect in chasing away the handsy counselor.

Jacob, she saw on his shirt as he all but ran away from Eliot. She was going to remember him.

_“I pulled it out of storage a few days ago. I figured something like this might happen, and it’s always good to have a plan F._

_“Besides, these days I look too damn happy in photos to have something like this made with a stranger. Ever since we bonded.”_

_“Aww, man! You’re making me blush.”_

“I think both of you need to get back here as soon as you can so we can make sure you’re in one piece.”

They must have caught her mood on the bond, because Eliot- _Eliot_ -blushed. Hardison whistled.

_“Yes ma’am.”_

_“Soon as I log out of here, I’m on my way.”_

The corner of Parker’s mouth tipped up in a smile.

Lucille was probably going to need some new shocks in the morning.


	3. Eliot

Eliot lay in their motel room-well, motel wasn’t entirely accurate. Or room.

It was a suite at the best hotel in Washington state, as close to the camp as they could get. They had to maintain his cover as the spoiled pet omega of a rich alpha. The bed was almost as big as their custom one in the pub.

He was wrapped around Hardison, who in turn was wrapped around Parker’s left arm.

He could respect her need to be mostly free when asleep. That’s why, after all, he was spooning Hardison instead of the other way around.

Eliot sighed, raising his head slightly to look over his mates at the clock next to Parker’s side of the bed. Nearly time for him to get up and head in to work. He dropped his head back down, burying his face in Hardison’s shoulder. He didn’t  _want_  to go back there. That camp brought back all kinds of memories he’d thought he’d gotten rid of.

_“Stupid invert! Shoulda drowned you at birth when you came out deformed!”_

Like that one.

Eliot winced at his father’s voice in his head, wrapping his arms more securely around Hardison’s waist. He took a deep, shuddering breath in and felt Alec’s hand come down gently on his hair.

“‘S ok, sweetie,” he mumbled through sleep heavy lips. “Last day.”

Eliot sighed again. It was at that. Finally. Today was the day they’d get Genna back for her mom, and then get the  _fuck_  out of dodge.

He let that thought ground him, letting himself center. He nuzzled Hardison’s neck as he petted his hair, then with a third sigh that was more of a groan, Eliot slid out of bed and stood. Wincing, he placed one hand at the small of his back and the other on the left side of his neck.

His bonding gland was one giant bruise and his back was  _killing_ him.

He glared down at Hardison’s sleepy, self-satisfied smile. He and Parker had done their damnedest to wear him out last night when he’d been up pacing a hole in the hardwood floor.

They’d succeeded, too.

“What?” He griped at them. “I’m old.”

“Not  _that_  old,” Parker said, adding her smirk to the mix.

Of course she was awake pretty much instantly. He almost hated her for that ability.

“Especially not if the noises you were making last night-"

“Dammit Hardison!” But he was laughing. How could he not with these two crazy, wonderful mates.

As he walked into the suite bath to shower, Eliot really hoped today went according to plan.

.0.o.0.o.0.

Today had  _not_  gone according to plan.

First, they’d moved Eliot’s location. Instead of landscaping near the alpha female dorm-on which the  _entire_  rescue hinged-they’d moved him to working in the woods behind the main campground. Which, okay, had the added benefit of revealing where the camp had been hiding their “treatment” cabins, which they’d been unable to locate, but added in the complication of the camp’s security guards following after him.

Threat of an alpha’s wrath hadn’t stopped them like it had with the a-hole counselor who’d groped him.

He’d left a trail of them like breadcrumbs through the forest for Parker to follow, and they’d left him with a black eye and a busted nose.

His cover was blown.

And so was Hardison’s; Pritchard had walked in on him just as he was beginning to dump the video records of all the camp’s “counseling sessions” onto the web. Hardison was going to have to get himself out of that one, but it should be easy given the fact that it seemed like  _every single guard_  was converging on him at this point.

Eliot raised one eyebrow at the latest guy, who was coming after him with a taser of all things. He just stood there, staring in disbelief until Parker tapped the guard lightly on the shoulder. When he turned, surprised, she’d punched him square in the jaw, knocking him out.

He nodded to her, then double checked with Hardison over comms. “You still alive?”

_“Yeah, and Pritchard is ranting and screaming from where he’s tied to his chair. You guys okay?”_

“We will be.”

He looked at Parker, not voicing his question but knowing she heard it.

“We’re getting all of the kids out of here. All of them.”

Eliot nodded, turning to the door of the hidden treatment hut next to him and kicking the door in.

They were shutting this fucker  _down_.

He and Parker walked into the cabin, a wave of heat scent hitting Eliot and making him freeze for half a second. These poor kids...

He didn’t want to think about what was playing on the screen. He just let Parker start frying it with her taser as he began undoing the straps holding the five omega males down. The one in heat, he picked up and cradled to his chest. The kid couldn’t be more than thirteen.

“It hurts.”

The whine almost undid him. He knew.  _God_ , he knew.

“It’s ok. We’re gonna take care of you.”

He let Parker take care of the other cabin; he could smell the rut pheromones from two hundred yards. When she emerged to lead a trail of three female alphas along the trail parallel to his, she caught Eliot’s eyes and gave a slight shake of her head.

Genna wasn’t there.

He sighed, then crouched in front of the boys, still holding onto the one in his arms.

“I need you all to follow me, okay? I’m not gonna let anything more happen to you, I promise. But we’ve got to get out of here.”

“No shit.” Eliot met the eyes of the one who’d spoken. The startled eyes looking back at him belonged to Jamie, the boy who’d been walking with the spitter a few weeks ago.

“You’ve got to do as I say, okay? But we’re going to get all of you out of here and make it so you never have to deal with shit like this again.”

It took a moment, but Jamie nodded.

Eliot stood, watching Parker lead the girls out of the woods, then followed her.

They still had to find Genna.

.0.o.0.o.0.

They did find her, eventually.

Even drugged, she was trying to protect the younger girls in her cabin. It took Hardison, with his lack of any pheromones to convince her to open the door.

Eliot really didn’t want to dwell on why she’d been hiding them.

But they got all of the kids. Pritchard and the counselors were arrested. CPS was involved now, and was determined to not let kids go back to parents who would just send them to another camp.

And Genna was with them on their way back to the brew pub.

She was quiet, slightly withdrawn. Eliot could understand, in a way the others just couldn’t. That and coming down off the drugs the camp had placed her on.

But when they got to the pub and she saw her mother in the dining room, both women broke down crying in each other’s arms.

Hardison wrapped one long arm around Eliot’s waist and Parker leaned her head against his shoulder.

He lived for these moments.

Julia looked up at them, tears streaming down her face, and said “Thank you. All of you. You got me my family back.”

As the two women walked out of the pub, Hardison leant down and kissed the side of Eliot’s forehead.

Yeah, these moments were the best.


End file.
